


The Vision Others Have for the World

by classics_above_classics



Series: Alice Dorothy and Stories Set Elsewhere [6]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Arguing, Changelings, Deals, Dubious Ethics, Gen, Revenge Plots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 23:55:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19051072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classics_above_classics/pseuds/classics_above_classics
Summary: The Fiddler siblings have their own ideals, and they take matters into their own hands.(This is, oftentimes, a problem.)





	The Vision Others Have for the World

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god, this monstrosity is finally done. I hate writing fights. I churned this out in three hours and promptly fucked off to do something else.
> 
> Still, though, I think it turned out alright! It's a few hundred words longer than the last few, so at least there's that to look forward to!

It isn’t quite eight-sixteen yet when Alice D. makes it to the office.

Elsewhere is terrifying at night. It scares her more now than it did before, now that she can see it through the lens of her glasses. There are creatures creeping in the dark of the halls, things with too many eyes and too many _teeth_. D. sometimes catches the flutter of wings just out of focus, the uneasy shifting of something humanoid in the corner. There are whispers, growls, sounds on the fading edge of hearing. Every step feels like a step forward into the abyss.

She went out tonight anyway. Because Lento’s life is worth more than her fear.

Connor is still right beside her as she approaches on the door. The other first-year is fidgeting, playing with an iron ring that’s a little too big for them. They’ve been quiet the whole time, matching D.’s own silence and helping keep them just out of the radar of so many fae. Neither of them has been pixy-led, and neither of them is lost. The office door is familiar. They’re fine. They’re fine.

Still, Alice D.’s heart is pounding. She hates, hates, _hates_ being out in the halls at night.

There isn’t an answer from inside. Faintly, past the way the door muffles it, D. can hear Michael arguing with someone. It reminds her, disconcertingly, of going back home. Thank God summer isn’t for months. She can’t make out words; just an on-going, muffled… worry? Fear? There is anger, there is definitely anger, but she can’t focus on it with the undertone of fear.

Okay, so it’s not like the kind of arguing at home. That kind isn’t fearful. It’s really more just… yelling.

Michael hadn’t been yelling when she came there this afternoon, right after she found out about Lento’s Taking. He’d just looked… relieved, a little. And then realizing, and disbelieving, and yes, angry. He’d asked her to leave and then ran off to find someone. But he hadn’t been yelling.

Connor frowns, fidgeting nervously with the hem of their jacket. They can hear it too- can probably hear it better, really, with the way their iron weakens any magic on the door meant to keep the sound in. “Are we even allowed to be here?”

“Let’s see,” D. replies, testing the handle. It’s locked. She knocks four times, and the room falls silent. “Michael? Are you inside? May we come in?”

There’s no answer for a moment. And then the lock clicks open, the doorknob turns, and Michael pushes the door open.

Alice D. feels more than sees Connor tense up behind her. They stand just a little straighter, glaring up at him warily and gripping the hem of that jacket a little too tight. Michael’s frown shifts at the sight of them, the man clearly confused, but he lets it be and moves on to the problem at hand. “Mx. Dorothy. Do you need anything?”

“I came to find you.” Alice D. resolutely does not look into the room to see who he was fighting with. Whoever they are, they’d probably appreciate the respite. “It’s about Lento. May we come in?”

“You don’t need his protection from her anymore,” a quiet voice from inside notes. It’s not a voice she’s familiar with.

Michael growls, shooting a glare across his shoulder towards whoever it is, before steeling himself and looking back at her. “You’re free to come in. Both of you. Now isn’t the best time, but… fuck, you were going to be a part of this anyway. Considering that you’re the one who told me about our current _problem_ in the first place, you should probably know this.”

So he was arguing about Lento’s Taking? Why?

Alice D. realizes why when she enters.

The other three Fiddlers are all seated at the arranged desks, silent and seething. D.’s already familiar with Johnny, dark-skinned and red-haired and forcing himself to look casual, but she doesn’t know the other two. Both are tall, taller than even Michael, with messes of short dark curls and identical faces. The first one is in slacks and a long-sleeved turtleneck, with a thin gold ring on his left hand boasting a glittering red jewel. The second is in a dress and a boater hat woven of straw, every colour on them looking muted but a braided anklet in the same bright red.

Watson and Calcifer. The third and the fourth.

“It’s nice to meet you,” D. greets them, suspicion starting to creep up in her veins. Why would they be here? What did they do? “I didn’t expect to meet Michael’s siblings here.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” the student in the boater hat replies, tipping said hat in greeting. They aren’t the person who spoke earlier. “I’m Calcifer. And you are?”

“That’s Alice Dorothy,” Johnny replies before she can, kicking his feet up onto the desk. “You know the one. You especially, Watson- don’t you dare even try to hide it. She’s the one who told Cowboy, so let’s just get any angry responses over with and then get out of here, alright?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Alice Dorothy. I’m Watson.” The brother in the turtleneck waves politely, his smile looking a little strained. “You seem like a nice girl. You’d understand, right?”

“I appreciate the sentiment, though I’m not exactly a girl.” D. isn’t quite sure what to do with the statement after that. “What, exactly, would I understand?”

The room falls silent.

“Alright, fuck this.” Connor strides in all-too-confidently, levelling every one of the Fiddlers with a judging glare. It works surprisingly well, considering that they’re about five feet and have no weapons. “Did someone here Take D.’s old roommate, whatever that means, or did you not?”

… The iron has to be the only thing keeping them alive. It has to be.

“It’s lovely to meet you too,” Calcifer replies dryly, tapping a finger on the brim of their hat. “I’m going to go out on a hand here and presume you don’t actually know what’s going on.”

“It’s “go out on a limb”, actually. If you’re going to be condescending to me, at least do it properly.” Connor crosses their arms, the glare now focused squarely on them. “Yeah. I don’t know. But I figure we could change that. You seem to know what happened. Why not just say it outright?”

“If you know nothing, it’d be best for everyone involved if you kept your mouth shut.” Calcifer’s voice is rising. D. feels something twist in her stomach, something making her nauseous. “Exactly _who_ do you think you are?”

“I’m Connor, in first-year robotics, and considering that I’m actually trying to do something here I’m clearly doing better than you.”

“Your roommate is a singularly infuriating individual,” Watson notes worriedly, wincing away from his sibling. It makes sense, considering that the woven straw of Calcifer’s hat seems to be coming to life. “Let’s see where this goes.”

It doesn’t really go anywhere. Calcifer and Connor seem to have settled, at least temporarily, for glaring at each other. Which is nice.

The silence has come back, though. Admittedly it’s much less tense now. Just… quiet. Unsure.

The Fiddlers are all glancing at Johnny, still perched haphazardly on a tilted-back chair. His posture gets worse the moment he notices, hunched in on itself and even more precarious with the aggressively casual pose. D.’s more than a little worried he’s going to fall. He isn’t meeting any of their eyes.

Calcifer breaks first.

“I’m not getting the girl back.”

At the decisive, sudden statement, Michael growls again, sounding just a bit more inhuman this time, just a bit more _Else_. “That’s a given, of course, considering that she’s fucked off to Fairyland due to _your_ intervention. The problem is that you sent her in the _first_ place!”

“She made a Deal.”

“You could have denied it! You can always deny it! You didn’t have to throw yourself and some girl headfirst into danger to get her swapped out with some fae just because she wanted to strike a Deal!”

“She made a _Deal_.”

“She will die in there! You know that! You sent a girl Elsewhere to _die_ because you didn’t _want_ to refuse the Deal! Hell, you didn’t even just _accept_ the Deal, you _suggested_ it!”

… Ah. So.

Alice D. looks up, the voices almost falling away in light of this realization. Calcifer offered a Taking for her. And Lento… accepted? Why? What could she possibly want to do _elsewhere_? What could she possibly want to find?

“… If it’s any help, I’m the one who asked Calcifer to make the Deal.”

All eyes turn to Watson. The boy looks away, not meeting their gazes. “I couldn’t let a girl like that stay here. Not where so many people could be used.”

“So he had me send her off to die.” Calcifer bows their head, their expression strained and forced into something just on the edge of calm. They’re still smiling, like it’s the only thing they can think to do. D. can’t ignore the way their smile twitches. “Have at him, Cowboy.”

“You- You _asked our sibling to kill a girl_.”

“I asked them to punish her, Cowboy.” Watson’s voice is deceptively guiltless, deceptively innocent. As if he hadn’t asked someone to arrange Lento’s Taking. “And you, Calcifer, I don’t see why you’re so angry about it all of a sudden. You were willing to do it.”

“Because you asked me to,” Calcifer responds. “I never want to say no to you. You’re my brother, my littlest one.”

“You’re younger than me.”

“We’re not having this argument right now.”

“Then let’s have another one. Why don’t you think this was right? Why don’t you think this was deserved?”

“Because my conscience is in the room and yelling at you.” They nod towards Michael, who is seething with rage. “He’s got a point.”

“ _Cipher_ -” Watson stops himself, the jewel on his ring flashing in annoyance. “It was the right thing to do. Wasn’t it? She’s made so many people feel unsafe, like everyone was going to take their every word and twist it until they were her toys. She’s played a thousand people and collected twice that in debts. What, do you think she was in the right? Do you think I shouldn’t have stopped her?”

Oh, no, no, no, that’s a psychological trick. A black-and-white view, a view of actions being imposed on others to make them agree because they think it is the only option. D. stands straighter, her fingers curling into fists. This isn’t that simple.

“No,” Calcifer bites out, “I don’t.”

“Then I don’t see what’s wrong. It was right to stop her, then, right? So-”

“ _No_ ,” someone cuts in. Alice D. realizes belatedly that it’s her. Her voice is shaking, but she keeps going. Fit together ideas. Fit together words. “You trapped her in a world full of- of hostile beings, all of them willing and practiced in doing the same thing to her. You trapped her in a dangerous world, where humans are usually seen as slaves and fun playthings, and where she will almost certainly die. You put her in danger.”

“I gave her what she deserved,” Watson replies. “I carried out justice. An eye for an eye, right? Now she’ll live in a world of the same danger and fear she put others in. You know what it would feel like, don’t you? You know how it would feel to be in that kind of danger.”

_When? When did she start owing her? Why were there so many debts? God, she couldn’t even count them, all tangled and tied-up as they were. How?_

“I know what it feels like to be that scared.” Alice D. grits her teeth, trying to force herself to stop quivering at the thought. “And? I don’t understand how sending Lento to die fixes that.”

“She knows how it feels, now, to be that scared. She knows how wrong she was.” Biblical revenge, then. An eye for an eye. D. still doesn’t see how that’s recompense. “No-one will have to be scared of her anymore. She won’t hurt them again. And she’ll understand what she put everyone else through. She’ll get what she deserves. Besides, humans don’t always die in fairyland. Calcifer didn’t send her to die.”

“Interesting. You’re pinning the blame on Calcifer.” Watson turns to Johnny, now leaning forward on the desk, and the latter freezes. “What? Just saying. You convinced them to do it. Yeah, they actually _did_ it, which is a problem on its own, but still. It’s like blaming the driver of a van for bringing soldiers to warzones when it’s the general or whoever that sent them. There’s blame there, but not nearly as much. Also, humans do die over in fairyland. Usually in slavery, too. Why do you think we have _warnings_ on how to deal with the Fair Folk instead of advice?”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Alice D. says unthinkingly, the agreement lessening the weight of the argument. She regrets it quickly.

“No problem, A.D.” Johnny waves it off, the string that was starting to form fading away. “Let’s just get my brother here sorted out, alright?”

“Yeah. Um. Watson?” Connor pipes up. “You’re kind of arguing like a movie villain right now, and that’s pretty obviously a bad sign. Maybe cut down on the an-eye-for-an-eye thing. Violence for violence is the rule of beasts and all. This was not the right thing to do.”

Calcifer stands, crossing the room and curling up beside Michael. Michael himself is silent, glaring, letting the others speak for him.

“Let’s agree to disagree here.” And nope, _nope_ , that doesn’t solve a single problem. Still, Watson continues, resolutely ignoring the mutiny. “Alright. What do you want to do, then, about Lento being in fairyland?”

There isn’t an answer.

What _does_ D. want? She wants Lento to be safe, yes. She wants for her to… to come back? To be in Elsewhere again, yes, safe and sound and just _not_ indebting people.

“I want for her to come back. I want to get her back.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening.” Calcifer grimaces, shifting closer to Michael. Their brother wraps an arm around them and they close their eyes. “She asked me to do something. To cast a spell on her.”

“And what’s the spell?” Connor asks, raising an eyebrow. “Did she ask to stay for as many years as there were grains of sand in your hand or something?”

“Apollo myths. Nice.” The fourth Fiddler shakes their head. “But no. That, we could easily get around. We could take her out until Alice Dorothy was out of school and then put her right back in. She could live a human lifetime and go back to Elsewhere on her deathbed and that spell would let her live three hundred thousand years Underhill. No. She asked for something much harder.”

“And?”

“She asked that no-one have the power to make her leave. She can only leave if she walks out herself, of her own volition, without mind games and without psychological tricks and without doubt. She can only leave if she wholly, entirely wants to.”

Then-

“Then she’s stuck.” Because Lento doesn’t want to, has never ever really wanted to. The Else and the _other_ is her dream. She’s never wanted anything more.

“I’ll take my leave.” Calcifer steps out of Michael’s hold, tipping their hat as they go. “Good night, all. See you tomorrow, Cowboy.”

“Shit, I should probably leave, too. Litwick’s probably waiting.” Johnny waves goodbye, rushing out the door. Weird. D. didn’t think Litwick shared a dorm with him.

“I’ll go too,” Watson stands, smiling weakly. His ring is dim again, not glowing with colour. “I’ll see you sometime, Cowboy.”

“Don’t think we’re done with this,” Michael growls, slamming the door behind his brother as he goes.

And so they leave only three in the room.

Alice D. sighs, plopping down in one of the vacant desks. She feels faint. And sick, of course. More than a little sick. “God. We’ve done nothing.”

“You’ll figure something out,” Connor reassures her, reaching out and clapping her on the shoulder. “Hey, um… Cowboy, right? Or Michael? Do you mind if we stay here for a bit? I feel like D. needs a little time to recharge and I’m not going out there without nem.”

Oh. Connor remembered her other pronouns. That’s pleasant.

“Feel free to stay the whole night. I have pillows and blankets, and it’s getting pretty late. Johnny told me about your safe hours, and… Well, it’s a little past that. So.”

Blearily, Alice D. looks up at the clock. Nine thirty-seven. God, they’ve been fighting a while. She feels _drained_.

“Yeah, okay. It’s a Saturday tomorrow, at least. No classes for either of us.” Connor takes the seat beside D., collapsing onto the desk. “Can I ask what happened? Why were you all talking about fairyland?”

“I’ll explain,” Michael asks, sounding fondly exasperated, and half-heartedly D. wonders why he can explain this but not how to make protective charms. Does his deal not cover this or something? “Alright. So. Elsewhere University is a school built on a fairy hill…”

And so the night ends.


End file.
